


Look, Boss, No Hands

by seashadows



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Don't copy to another site, Extreme Sports, Friendship, Gen, Humor, It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, Joe and Booker are terrible influences on each other, M/M, Pre-Canon, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, but nothing egregious, very very VERY brief mention of Booker's canonical suicidal ideation, warning: a few descriptions of missing body parts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:46:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27596366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: Booker rubbed his hands together. “No, see,” he said, “if I eat the Pop Rocks first, they’ll get digested and then they won’t react or something. It’s science, Joe. They have to touch each other to make the gases.”“Oh,” Joe said. “If it doesn’t work, we can always just try again.” The point of all this was to knock Adam Savage and company’s smug faces down a peg, even if they were never going to see this, and he intended to keep on until the job was done. “Pop that thing open.”Or: immortality can't be angstyallthe time.(Five times Joe and Booker used their immortality to participate in modern extreme sports, and one time Joe was a hypocrite about it.)
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 44
Kudos: 276





	Look, Boss, No Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you very much to eris/transgoats/Casey for beta-reading!

“I think this is it,” Nicky said. “I think this time, he’s gone over the edge.”

“When has he _not_ gone over the edge?”

The corners of Nicky’s mouth curled up, slowly yet steadily. “We could refuse, you know,” he said. “What would he do, Joe, make one of _us_ ride the skateboard?”

“For your information, it’s called skitching,” said Joe in his loftiest tone. “If you’re going to refuse to participate, at least get the term right.” He leaned over and put his arm around Nicky’s shoulders, kissing him firmly on the cheek. “Luddite.”

Nicky was fighting a laugh, Joe could tell. If the thinning of his mouth hadn’t given him away, then the crinkles at the corners of his eyes would have. “I drive, _Yusuf_ ,” he said. “I use the computer. I make coffee in a coffee machine instead of over an open flame. I’m not a Luddite. I’m just anti-stupidity.”

“Hey!” There was a sound of scraping wheels, followed shortly by a fist pounding on the back of the car. “We doing this, or do I have to do it myself?”

“We’re just talking, Booker,” Joe called back, then added in an undertone to Nicky, “I should really roll up the window. It’ll be terrible for the aerodynamics if I don’t.”

“Yeah, yeah, excuses, excuses,” Booker said. Joe craned his neck and looked out the window just enough to see Booker take a gulp from his bottle of unidentified alcoholic beverage in the rearview mirror. The knot in the rope tied around his waist looked tight, at least – they weren’t going to make _that_ mistake again. “C’mon, be a friend.”

Joe looked at Nicky, who looked back at him, completely poker-faced. “Well?”

“Oh, fine,” Nicky said, and rolled his eyes. “Booker? You get your wish.”

“About time!” Booker hollered. “Drive, you fuckers!”

Nicky snorted as Joe rolled up the window. “ _Liberté, égalité, suicidalité_ ,” he muttered, and stepped on the gas.

* * *

“Are you sure it has to be Coke?” Joe asked. “Is it something about the brand, or would anything carbonated work?”

Booker shook his head. “I don’t want to take any chances,” he said. “I had to get the real stuff. How else are we going to prove those fuckers wrong? With substandard materials?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Joe. “You’re right.” He sat down in one of the lawn chairs they’d put out and surveyed the materials. “Okay, so do you eat them first and then drink the Coke, or do you mix them together, or what? You’re the expert.”

“ _Absolutely_ I am.” Booker plunked down in the second chair. “I think,” he said, stroking his chin contemplatively, “that I’m supposed to drink the Coke first.”

“That can’t be right. If you do that, the Pop Rocks will just float there.”

Booker rubbed his hands together. “No, see,” he said, “if I eat the Pop Rocks first, they’ll get digested and then they won’t react or something. It’s _science_ , Joe. They have to touch each other to make the gases.”

“Oh,” Joe said. “If it doesn’t work, we _can_ always just try again.” The point of all this was to knock Adam Savage and company’s smug faces down a peg, even if they were never going to see this, and he intended to keep on until the job was done. “Pop that thing open.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!” said Booker. He gleefully twisted open the bottle of Coke and began to chug with a vigor that Joe had only ever seen him deploy for alcohol.

Joe didn’t know how scientific it all was, but three and a half two-liter bottles and twenty packets of Pop Rocks later, Booker was minus a functional stomach and – temporarily – minus a life. “ _Fuck_ those guys,” he said when he came back, giving Joe a grin that looked more dazed than happy. “I knew we were right.”

“We _were_ right,” said Joe, high-fiving him.

“You know what we should do next?” Booker asked.

Joe thought about it for a moment. “Blow up a pumpkin?”

“No, but that’s a good one, too. Diet Coke and Mentos.” Booker wiped some blood off his forehead. “I think we’ll get good results on that one, too. For science.”

“For science,” Joe agreed. “It has to be done.”

* * *

“Yusuf,” Nicky said, “do you know the expression ‘it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye’?”

“Yes,” said Joe, and then “ _Ow!_ ” as Nicky pressed his thumb a little too hard against the healing cut on his eyebrow. “That hurts.”

“Mm. Well.” Nicky’s face softened marginally as he lightened his touch a little and rubbed Joe’s eyebrow with a damp cloth. “Now you’ve lost an eye and no one is laughing.”

Joe crossed his arms and pouted. “It’s not my fault it’s taking me longer to heal this time. I’m going to be fine, Nicky.”

“The healing time isn’t your fault,” said Nicky. “I acknowledge that. What _is_ your fault is your decision to go sandboarding with Booker.”

Joe looked across the room to where Booker sat, an ice pack against his sand-blasted face as he winced through the healing process. “I was bored.”

“Oh, _bored_ , he says!” Nicky framed Joe’s face with his hands and looked into his eye socket. Joe blinked, and thought he could see a faint blur on that side – good, it was coming back. He hated when his vision was uneven. “You were bored, and you tried this without even a proper sports course set up instead of coming to me for entertainment?”

“You were busy.”

“You could have pulled me away,” Nicky countered. “That’s a terrible excuse, Yusuf.”

Joe squinted as the light in the room shone into his sensitive new eye. The sensitivity until everything adjusted was always the worst thing about growing new body parts. “I didn’t want to disturb you,” he said, turning to the side to spit out part of a tooth that he hadn’t realized had broken. “We were both trying to be considerate, Nicolò.” He was sure Nicky knew it was a complete lie, but he had to try anyway. “Anyway, shouldn’t you just be glad I’m okay?”

Nicky snorted. “I know I should be, but you’ve tried my patience with this stunt,” he said. “Good, your eye is back. You can clean up your own blood now.” He handed Joe his washcloth. “And as for you,” he said to Booker, “I believe the most accurate expression here is _schadenfreude_.”

* * *

Joe woke to the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that he was being chewed on. It took opening his eyes and looking down the length of his battered body to understand why.

“Piranhas!” he yelped, surging to his feet. An identical sloshing noise next to him told him that Booker had made the same discovery. “Fuck, they’re eating us!”

Booker swore creatively in French, hopping from foot to foot. “ _Merde!_ ” he concluded. _“_ I should’ve – ow, ow, ow, _sacre_ – fucking ow! Get off my toe!”

“We have to get out of here,” Joe said. He was beginning to think that maybe rafting down a waterfall hadn’t been the best idea. At least this was a shallow tributary, not the main river. “Ow!” He pulled a fish out of his shorts and threw it as far as he could. “Do you remember how to get to the safehouse?”

“I don’t know! You were the one with the GPS!”

Joe patted down his pockets and found a distinct lack of phone, soaking wet and useless or otherwise. “Looks like we’re walking,” he said, and sloshed his way to the shore, kicking at the piranhas as they swarmed around him. “We’ll get candiru if we stay here.”

“That’s a myth,” Booker said.

“So are we.” Joe took off his cap, which seemed to have miraculously stayed on his head through everything, and wrung as much water out of it as he could before setting it back on his head. His hair was going to be a _mess._

It was near sunset by the time they found their way back to the safehouse. Andy was nowhere in sight when they finally got in, courtesy of the key Booker had been smart enough to keep attached to his clothes on a chain. Nicky, however, was a different story. “Hello,” he said as the two of them squelched through the front room, turning a page of his book. “Did you learn something today?”

“ _Tais-toi_ ,” Booker grumbled. “We’re fine.”

“That’s good.” Nicky stretched his arms over his head. “You two watched that movie about the king who turns into a llama, didn’t you?”

“Uh,” Joe said, feeling a little like a deer in the headlights, “um…no?”

Nicky turned another page. “Yusuf, I love you, but if you did and you decided to imitate the waterfall scene, then you two are missing several brain cells. It takes place in Peru, not the Amazon basin.”

Booker made a disbelieving noise. “You remembered the Peru thing, but not that it’s called ‘The Emperor’s New Groove’? I call bullshit, Nicky.”

Nicky looked up just long enough to raise his eyebrows. “Sébastien,” he said, “your shirt is wiggling.”

Joe followed his gaze. “He’s right,” he said, hoping it wasn’t an intestine. “Booker, what did you put in – _oh, God!_ ”

Booker drowned him out by screaming at a pitch that probably could have attracted fruit bats as the piranha fell out of his shirt. “Fuck, fuck, evil fish! Kill it or something, Nicky, what are you even doing? _Evil fish!_ ”

“What the hell is going on?” Andy burst through the nearest door, pulling on a tank top as she went. “I was trying to get some sleep – Booker, what the _fuck?_ ”

“I believe they were attacked by piranhas, Andromache,” said Nicky dryly. Joe jumped onto the nearest footstool and glared daggers at him as Booker banged into the wall in his rush to get away. “They probably want some help.”

“Seriously? Piranhas?” Andy knelt and picked up the wiggling fish. “You two are screaming like toddlers over a stupid fish?”

Booker nodded frantically. “Kill it! Please!”

“Fuck, no, I’m keeping this thing as a pet.” Andy hefted the piranha and shot Joe and Booker a grin that was even toothier than the fish’s. “At least until you two learn to stop pulling these stunts. You died, didn’t you?”

“No,” Joe said.

“Yes, you did,” Andy countered. “Piranhas only attack dead things, and only when they’re really hungry.”

“…oh,” Booker said, and deflated. Joe felt his shoulders slump in equal defeat. It seemed that nature had gotten the better of them again. “Good to know.”

* * *

Andy crossed her arms and stared down the length of her nose at the two men in front of her. “Care to explain?”

Joe licked his lips. “Um…”

She held up her hand. “No. No, you know what, I don’t need to hear whatever you’re about to say. I need to yell at you, and you need to sit there and _listen_.”

Booker squirmed in his seat, eyes sliding to the side. “Boss. Andy, come on –“

“What did I say?” she said sharply. “Did I say ‘Booker, it’s okay to interrupt me’? I don’t remember saying that.” She linked her hands behind her back and squared her stance. “I also don’t remember saying that you two should try to _pole vault off a mountain_ , but here we are.”

“Yeah, here we are!” Booker said. “That’s the point! Okay, maybe we died, but…”

“You died three times each.” She was on a roll, and she didn’t care to be interrupted, not by Booker or by any other clown who decided to stand in her way. “For fuck’s sake, you two are still covered in blood! Fights I understand, but how the hell could either of you get anything out of doing _that_? It isn’t even a real sport!” At least when they’d been idiotic about that waterfall, they’d been imitating other idiots.

Joe scratched at his jaw, flakes of dried blood falling out of his beard with every pass of his fingers. “Fun?” he ventured. “That’s definitely what I got out of it.” 

“Fuck, yeah!” Booker held up a hand. Joe enthusiastically high-fived him with an equally broad grin. “How is it you don’t understand that, boss? Adrenaline rush! You go flying through the air, bounce off a few rocks, smash your head open…there’s nothing like it.”

“And,” said Joe before Andy could so much as open her mouth, “you got it wrong. We didn’t _try_ to pole vault off a mountain.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her. “We succeeded.”

Andy set her jaw and ground her teeth together until she felt it in every bone of her skull. “I’m going to go take a walk,” she said, “and when I come back, you two had better be clean so I don’t ever have to think about you doing stupid shit like that again. Am I clear?”

Booker and Joe eyed each other, both of them wearing expressions that telegraphed they were seconds away from laughter. “Sure,” said Booker, sounding strangled. “Totally clear… _Mom_.”

Fucking _God._ Time for the nuclear option. “And if you ever even think about pole-vaulting off anything higher than the roof,” she said, fixing her gaze on Joe, “I’ll tell Nicky.”

His eyes went wide with horror. Clearly, he was just as cognizant as she was of the fact that Nicky had had it up to _here_ with his and Booker’s idea of a good time. “Please don’t,” he said. “You – you have a deal.”

* * *

The last of the bones in his nose had finally settled back into place by the time Nicky got back to the room he was sharing with Joe. However, the mirror told him that his face was still covered in blood. “That was an experience,” he told his reflection. “I don’t think skiing is for me.”

“Nicolò!” The door banged open to admit Joe, who rushed over to Nicky’s side and took his face in his hands. “Nicky, are you hurt? Nile said you got hurt. What happened?”

“It’s nothing, Joe,” Nicky told him. “You see? I’m fine.” He waved a hand below his face. “I don’t understand why you’re worried.”

“’It’s nothing’?” Joe echoed. “Nicky, look at you! You broke your nose.” His eyes were full of concern as he traced his thumbs down the length of Nicky’s nose. “And there were cuts here, I’m absolutely sure there were.” He gently touched Nicky’s forehead. “How badly were you bleeding?”

Nicky pulled away with a laugh. “Yusuf, stop! I’m fine, really, I am. I…what’s the term? Wiped off?”

“Wiped _out_ , Nicolò,” Joe said.

“No, I think I’m right. I was wiped off my feet.” Specifically by a tree that definitely shouldn’t have been in the middle of a ski course. But then again, Nicky himself had no business being in the middle of a ski course, seeing as he hadn’t done anything resembling skiing in several hundred years. Now that he thought about it, he had probably veered off the path. “I didn’t want you to have to stop your snowboarding.”

“You should have come and found me.” Joe hugged him hard, which felt very nice, despite how cold his clothes were. “I would have stopped. Nicky, you have to be more careful!”

Nicky blinked. “ _What?_ ” He couldn’t help it; he started laughing in earnest, holding on the bathroom counter with one hand so he wouldn’t fall over. “Joe, are you – are you serious?”

“Of course I am,” Joe said. “Why?”

“You…” Nicky shook his head and put his hands on Joe’s shoulders. “Yusuf ibn Ibrahim ibn Muhammad ibn al-Kaysani,” he said, “you are a hypocrite of the highest order.”

He could tell the second that understanding hit Joe. “Oh.” Joe’s cheeks darkened as he looked away. “Um. I…I just…”

Nicky shook his head. “It’s okay,” he said. If not for the blood on his face, he would have kissed Joe in reassurance, but he settled for squeezing his hands instead. “Come and help me clean up,” he said, “and I’ll consider us even.”

Joe settled the matter by hugging him again. “Deal.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nicky's sarcasm in the first section is a reference to the ubiquitous motto during the French Revolution: _liberté, égalité, fraternité_. 
> 
> " _Tais-toi_ " is French for "shut up."


End file.
